Discussion

TENNESSEE RESTAURANTS - Where you at?

Does anybody know any good restaurants around Tennessee? Especially Asian food, I haven't had any really good Fusion food (Japanese, Chinese, Korean) since I've been here. Don't recommend P.F. Chang's because that place is horrible.

In Nashville try PM on Belmont. They have a mixed menu of sushi, thai and other asian influenced foods. The odd thing is they have one of the best burgers in town, fusion at it's quirkiest. And yes PF Changs is sub par.

Kien Giang on Charlotte Avenue has Vietnamese food. It's really good, but then I always get the same two things: pho and banh xeo. There are weaker dishes on the menu -- my kid got a chicken rice stir-fry once that was pretty average, and II once got seafood noodles that were a disappointment. Stick to the banh xeo and pho.

Sonobana in Lion's Head on White Bridge Road is very good Japanese. My best friend eats there every single week. I've only been a couple of times, but it was really good.

In Chattanooga there is Seoul, they do Korean and Vietnamese food, the Korean is the thing to go with. For sushi I can recommend Hiroshi's on Main Street, very good. The Vietnamese cusine at Old Saigon in the Hixson area is quite good. Rain on Lee Highway has the best Thai in town, their sushi is also very good-the sushi chef used to be at Hiroshi's and is now part of the management at Rain.

Here is a verbatim quote from something I posted on another thread several hours ago.

In Knoxville is found perhaps the best Chinese chef in America, Peter Chang, at a place called Hong Kong House on the west side. If you like Chinese this is worth a journey. Knoxville has no idea how lucky they are to have this guy. I am not kidding. Check the threads below about some of his previous places:

The second thread has a lot of stuff about a series of lunches I hosted at one of the places he worked at in the DC area. Understand, PC once was the personal chef of the President of China. He started out in the US as the chef at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

look i don't support the idea he's the best in america...but i'd stick him for him to close to SGV (san gab valley) levels. If you look on LA's board, the best sichuan restaurant is chung king....and well ever since i've had tasty china in the ATL, i don't hanker for the dishes in LA anymore. He's that good...i've had dishes at tasty china that i haven't found anywhere but his place and SGV, so considering knoxvillians (sp?) to have a hell of a foodie find there

if you're passing around knoxville or anything like that, please do yourself favor and try his place...if you're not afraid of spicy foods.

Really??? I ate there last time in town and just thought everything was overly salted and owed much of its flavor to dried red pepper flakes from a bottle. I know it could be worse in TN, and granted, I do live in the above-mentioned SGV, but am I missing something? Is there a dish that's particularly good there?

When were you there? It may have been before he showed up, or it may have been on his night off (Tuesday I think)???

There are many good dishes there. You can't go wrong with the items pictured on the wall as you walk in, nor with the sections of the menu that are grouped under "chef's specials" and wording like that. His food certainly doesn't taste like your description. Did you notice a lot of cumin, and Sichuan peppercorns?

April, on a weekend. I couldn't be more specific about the spices, it was a while ago.There will probably only be 2 of us, and we can only order so much. So if you could recommend the 2 or 3 best things, that would be helpful.

Okay, I'm back and I gave it a try. I still think it's a little crazy to say Hong Kong House is near SGV levels, but it wasn't bad. And for Knoxville, that's great.The dried fried eggplant was definitely salty. But not just salt, that tasted a lot like garlic salt-msg stuff.Again, for knoxville, it's great. But obviously for me, living where I live, not necessary to go back.